Biobased Products and Bioenergy

Initiative: Grants and Contracts 

to Advance Biofuels Technology

and Market Entry

Technologies. In addition, Arthur D. Little Company

won a competitive contract for a key bioenergy study.

The consulting company will analyze the biomass

resources and technologies available for meeting the 

Initiative‘s goal of tripling biomass use. It will also

examine the economic and environmental impacts of an

expanded bioenergy role, barriers to achieving the goal,

and policy changes necessary to meet the goal.

In September, the DOE Office of Fuels Development

awarded cost-shared financial assistance totaling about

$1.5 million ($1.0 million DOE share) for research and

development to improve ethanol-from-biomass technology. These seven 1-year awards went to five universities

[Dartmouth (2), Colorado, Auburn, Florida, Iowa State]

and the Masada Resources Group. Subjects included

basic research on hydrolysis (the breakdown of cellulosic

material), genetic engineering of microorganisms that

produce enzymes, the fermentation of additional 

biomass-derived sugars, and the development of a corn

stover harvesting system.

The DOE Office of Industrial Technologies (OIT)

recently committed $8 million to initiate six major costshared-award research and development projects and

six grants to universities to support biobased product

graduate school programs. The research and development projects, sponsored by OIT’s Agricultural Industry

page 1

Mike Himmel/PIX 05014

Volume 3, Number 2 Fall 2000

continued on page 2

Animation of cellulase enzyme

attached to cellulose. Successfully reducing the cost of

enzymes that break cellulose

down to fermentable sugars 

is key to cutting the cost of

producing biomass ethanol

and other biobased fermentation products. The DOE 

Biofuels Program issued a major

($17 million total for three

years) subcontract to Genencor

International (see Spring/Summer 2000 issue of Biofuels News

http://www.ott.doe.gov/

biofuels/pdfs/summer00.pdf) to

develop less expensive enzymes

and expects to issue a second

contract soon.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has been

reaching out to U.S. industries, universities, and trade

associations to help meet the goals of a vital Presidential

initiative. In recent months, DOE has issued numerous

financial assistance awards and subcontracts in support

of the President’s Biobased Products and Bioenergy 

Initiative (see the article on the new National Bioenergy

Center on page 4). These cooperative projects seek to

improve key aspects of technology for developing 

valuable fuels and chemicals from domestic biomass

resources. All could play important roles in helping reach

the central goal of the Initiative—to triple U.S. use of

biobased products and bioenergy by 2010.

Four major cost-shared Biobased Products and 

Bioenergy Technology awards, totaling $4.3 million, are

described in more detail in the center pages of this

newsletter. These awards were jointly funded by the

DOE Offices of Power Technologies and Transportation
of the Future Program, are for generating biomassderived chemical building blocks or other industrial

processes leading to production of chemical products

from biomass: 

• Eastman Chemical Company will extract cellulose

from biomass to produce plastics for uses such as

fibers for clothing and filters.

• The Iowa Corn Promotion Board will produce an

intermediate chemical from corn syrup to use for

making a variety of products.

• Pittsburg State University will make plastics from

vegetable oils.

• The National Corn Growers Association will produce plastic from glucose for clothing fiber and

other materials.

• Amalgamated Research, Inc. will separate out individual monomers (building blocks for plastics, such

as those made in the other processes) from mixtures

of monomers or other biomass materials.

• Cargill Dow LLC will use yeast to ferment an additional biomass sugar to lactic acid. This will

enhance their process for making plastic from 

biomass (see article on page 3).

Another $675,000 from the Office of Power Technologies’ Biomass Power Program funded five grants to

allow universities to research cofiring of biomass with

coal in their own heating plants.

Both the Biofuels Program and the Agricultural

Industry of the Future Program plan on issuing new

solicitations for engineering development projects in the

near future and OIT plans another education solicitation.

Watch for announcements at http://www.eren.doe.gov/

solicitations.html or in the Federal Register. 

In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture just

announced two new programs to promote bioenergy.

Information about these programs can be found at

http://www.fsa.usda.gov/daco/bioenergy/bioenergy.htm. Under a

2-year, $150 million per year program, the Commodity

Credit Corporation will make cash payments to compensate for a portion of increased biomass feedstock purchases

to bioethanol and biodiesel producers based on their

increased production. The other program provides for up

to six 10-year-long pilot projects for the harvesting of biomass from Conservation Reserve Program lands for use in

energy production. State Farm Service Agencies will accept

applications for the pilot projects until December 19, 2000.

Printed with a renewable-source ink on paper containing at least 50% wastepaper, including 20% postconsumer waste.

Biobased Products and Bioenergy Initiative (continued)

page 2

Biobased Products and Bioenergy 

Technology Awards:

National Corn Growers /

Archer Daniels Midland

One of the four cost-shared financialassistance Bioenergy projects awarded in

June (see page 1) is to the National Corn

Growers Association (NCGA) and

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). This 2-year, $2.5 million

($1.7 million DOE contribution) project seeks to prove

the concept for an industrial process to produce valuable

products by separating corn fiber from wet-mill ethanol

plants into component parts. The project is based on

largely existing technology and combines laboratory-scale

work with process engineering and economic analyses. 

The proposed industrial process takes advantage of

the fact that at one point in the wet-mill ethanol process,

the corn fiber is already “clean,” with protein, oil, and

most sugar already separated. This process would break

the fiber down into sugars in several different streams

of varying composition. Certain streams would be

processed chemically to make products such as glycols

for antifreeze. Other streams would be fermented to

ethanol. Corn-fiber oil (not to be confused with corn oil

separated in an earlier step) and ferulic acid would also

be separated out. While both are present in very small

quantities, they could contribute substantially to process

economics as a source for synthesis of high-value

“nutraceuticals”—food-derived specialty products such

as vitamins and vanillan.

NCGA, which is funding its share of the project with

member contributions, will manage the project and 

provide economic analysis. DOE’s Pacific Northwest

National Laboratory (PNNL) and ADM will carry out

the project research cooperatively. ADM will also contribute their expertise in the nutraceutical production

area, and provide key “real world” guidance for the

project. In addition to conducting the research, PNNL

will provide its chemical analysis capabilities and the

technology for producing glycols. Also, the National

Renewable Energy Laboratories is planning on 

contributing pretreatment expertise.

Louisiana Pacific Corporation/

Ensyn Technologies

Another of the June Bioenergy costshared awards went to Louisiana Pacific

Corporation and Ensyn Technologies for

development of technology for substituting wood bark-derived pyrolysis oil for petroleum-derived

phenol in adhesives used to make oriented-strand board

continued on page 3

Warren Gretz, NREL/PIX 00082

Warren Gretz, NREL/PIX 02001
page 3

Bioenergy Technology Grants: (continued)

(OSB, also known as flake board) and plywood. This 

2-year, $2 million ($1.4 million DOE share), project will

include commercial-scale adhesive production, manufacture of OSB and plywood in a commercial mill, 

testing of the structural panels produced, and environmental assessment of the technology.

Fast pyrolysis (chemical breakdown by heat) of 

wood bark produces a phenolics-rich oil that can be

mixed with conventional phenol to produce the phenolformaldehyde (PF) adhesive used in making OSB and

plywood. This would also allow less formaldehyde to

be used in making the adhesive. The byproducts from

the fast pyrolysis will be used as fuel for the production

process, but the project will also investigate the 

possibility of using the char to make activated carbon

for air and water purification systems.

Ensyn will use its own patented fluidized-bedreactor system for the fast pyrolysis. Adhesive 

production will be contracted to one or more of the

largest commercial resin producers in North America.

Louisiana Pacific, which is the world’s largest consumer

of PF adhesive, will make the OSB and plywood in one

or more of its own mills. The National Renewable

Energy Laboratory, which has done considerable work

in this area, will provide consulting and analysis 

support. OSB is the fastest growing structural panel

material, already capturing about half of the market.

About 4 billion pounds per year of petroleum-derived

phenol is now used to make PF adhesive. With this 

technology, as much as one-third of that phenol could

be replaced by biobased product.

Cargill Dow 

The 1-year, $2.2 million ($1.1 million

DOE share) award to Cargill Dow LLC

will help this company prepare to use

cellulosic material such as corn fiber or

corn stover as feedstock for its new biobased polylactic

acid (PLA) plastic. Cargill Dow LLC is a 50:50 joint venture between Cargill Incorporated and the Dow Chemical Company, established to produce biobased products

such as PLA. Cargill Dow is already producing and

marketing PLA under the trade name NatureWorksTM. 

Cargill Dow plans to open a 140,000 metric-ton-peryear capacity biobased-plastic production plant in Blair,

Nebraska, in late 2001. This award will assist Cargill

Dow’s plans to produce the lactic acid—from which

they make the plastic—from cellulosic biomass rather

than from corn starch. 

The Bioenergy award funds just the first year of a 

multi-year project to overcome several challenges to making the lactic acid from corn fiber or stover instead of

starch. Success will allow Cargill Dow to use lower cost

feedstock, thereby allowing expansion of the market for

PLA and perhaps make it possible to create ethanol or other

chemical products in conjunction with PLA production.

The PLA can be used in a wide range of applications,

but initial markets include clothing fiber, alone or as a

blend, and packaging materials such as films and

biodegradable food and beverage containers. While other

companies have produced biobased plastics for niche

uses such as biodegradable medical implants, this is the

first mass-market production.

Gas Technology Institute

The smallest of the four June 

Bioenergy Initiative awards went to the

Gas Technology Institute (GTI) to evaluate the possibility of using anaerobicdigestion to convert swine manure to methane fuel and

fertilizer. This 1-year, $337,000 ($264,000 DOE share)

award addresses an increasingly troublesome environmental problem with a possible bioenergy solution.

Unlike other animal manure, swine manure is highly liquid and high in soluble nitrates. When applied to cropland as fertilizer, much of the nitrate can leach through the

soil and contaminate groundwater.

GTI was formed by a recent merger of the 

Gas Research Institute, which served the natural gas

industry, and the Institute of Gas Technology, a not-forprofit research organization. GTI has developed several 

anaerobic digestion technologies for use in sewage 

treatment systems. Anaerobic digestion uses naturally

occurring microorganisms to process sewage or other

biomass material in closed, pressurized tanks. GTI

believes that anaerobic digestion can convert swine

manure into a methane-rich fuel gas and an effective

fertilizer that is largely free of pathogens, leachable

nitrates or other soluble organics—and odor. 

In this project, GTI researchers will test various

anaerobic digestion systems for processing swine

manure, together with a methane-enrichment technology for making the gas produced more valuable.

Alliance Consultants will quantify the test results and

make economic projections. Preliminary investigations

indicate that the technology could be used by the 

majority of hog farms. They also suggest that the

digesters could pay for themselves quickly with the

value of the fuel gas and with the increased value of 

the fertilizer compared to raw manure.

Cargill Dow/PIX 09639

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Produced for the National Biofuels Program, Office of Fuels Development, U.S. Department of Energy,

1000 Independence Ave., S.W., Washington, D.C. 20585-1121. 

National Bioenergy 

Center Created

ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED

Upcoming Conferences

Biofuels News on the Web

On October 31, Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson announced the 

creation of a National Bioenergy Center to serve as a focal point for the

Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) efforts to develop technology and information about biobased products and bioenergy in the United States. The center

will be based at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and be

lead by NREL and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). In addition, the

center will incorporate work conducted at other DOE laboratories. Secretary

Richardson describes this organizational structure as an “inclusive center

without walls.” The new center will also coordinate with bioenergy work at

the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other federal agencies, as well as

working cooperatively with industrial partners. The new center will help

carry out President Clinton’s 1999 Initiative and subsequent Congressional

authorization. More information about the Biobased Products and Bioenergy

Initiative is available from DOE (http://www.eren.doe.gov/bioenergy_initiative/) and

interagency (http://www.bioproducts-bioenergy.gov/about.html) Web sites. 

The core components of the National Bioenergy Center will be the current

Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals and Chemistry for Bioenergy Systems

Centers at NREL ($33 million per year total budget) and the Biomass Feedstock Development Program at ORNL ($6 million). ORNL also carries out

other bioenergy efforts, as do Argonne National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and other DOE facilities. DOE, NREL, and ORNL

will conduct a national search for hiring a director for the new center.

Researchers and producers—don’t miss the:

23rd Symposium on Biotechnology

for Fuels and Chemicals 

May 6-9, 2001, Breckenridge, CO

http://www.nrel.gov/biotech_symposium

Abstracts accepted until February 15, 2001:

The Fifth Biomass Conference of the Americas

Sept. 17-21, 2001, Orlando, Florida 

http://www.nrel.gov/bioam/

FOR OTHER UPCOMING CALENDAR EVENTS SEE:

http://www.afdc.doe.gov/

cgi-bin/comingevents/events.cgi?biofuel

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